From the Web: Consumer Litigation and Complaints Experience a Downturn in September

The decline in litigation is not “huge,” but it’s “not insignificant either,” WebRecon’s CEO reports.

11/7/2018 11:00 AM

BCFPFCRANewsTCPAFDCPA

Consumer litigation and complaints reversed course in September with an across-the-board decline compared to the previous month, according to the latest report from WebRecon.

“Every category is down by double digits, from 16.8 percent (BCFP complaints) to 31.5 percent (TCPA complaints,)” WebRecon CEO Jack Gordon notes in the report. “What does this mean? Usually, not very much. Year-over-year, these numbers have tended to be remarkably consistent. However, if trends hold, litigation this year is on track to be about 5 percent lower than the last several years. That is not huge, but it is not insignificant either.”

Among consumer litigation tracked in the report, Telephone Consumer Protection Act filings declined the most from August to September—by 31.5 percent from 362 to 248. Fair Debt Collection Practices Act filings declined 29.7 percent from 907 to 638 while Fair Credit Reporting Act filings declined 21.7 percent from 433 to 339, according to the report.

The BCFP received 37,218 complaints from Jan. 1, 2017 to Sept. 30, 2017, compared to 40,926 from Jan. 1, 2018 to Sept. 30, 2018—a 10.2 percent increase, according to the report.

FDCPA filings declined 6.6 percent from 7,515 as of the end of September 2017 to 7,018 in September this year. TCPA filings also declined, by 14.5 percent, from 3,455 as of the end of September 2017 to 2,954 this year. FCRA filings increased by 4.5 percent from 3,327 to 3,476.

Similar to July and August, debt collection companies responded to a majority, 95 percent (3,494), of September BCFP complaints in a timely manner.

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